


24 Lives, 24 Times

by FictionalFeather



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Eren Yeager Wears Lingerie, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Temporary Character Death, something for everyone - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:03:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionalFeather/pseuds/FictionalFeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of lives that they could have had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	24 Lives, 24 Times

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the [24-times](http://24-times.livejournal.com/profile) comm over on livejournal.
> 
> (Also I am greatly amused that 'Eren Yeager wears lingerie' is a tag.)

1\. The first time Levi remembered how loneliness can feel like claws growing from inside you, he thought Eren was dead.

Almost a week of silence. One of the squad had returned, carrying the body of another. They’d been caught by surprise. The other three were missing, Eren one of them.

The odds of him surviving out there for that long…Levi refused to grieve, but recoiled from being naïve enough to hope. He pushed away the ultimatum, stuffed it behind a façade crafted from years of being left.

But it backfired, and everything he refused to feel turned turbulent and red-white with anger when he first got word of the missing squad being in the infirmary. Levi has no memory of walking, but suddenly Eren was there, unhurt, forehead creased with concern as he tried to see over the bodies huddled around his friends. He was filthy, but undamaged.

He turned when he heard Levi, and his expression changed to that wide-eyed, almost surprised look that Levi had termed the whelp face, but in the tiny moment before Levi reached him, he stopped smiling and closed his eyes. The totally serene calmness he managed to conjure in that one moment incensed Levi, and made his fist connect with Eren’s cheek all the more powerfully.

Eren stayed on the floor, hand to his cheek, and looked up at Levi, who was clenching his fists and breathing heavily through his nose.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Levi shut his eyes and breathed.

*****

2\. The best time he and Eren ever had in bed, at least so far, was when Eren had taken to heart Levi’s passing remark about wanting him in lingerie.

He’d leaned against Levi’s desk in silky black underwear that probably cost way more than that amount of fabric ought to, matching thigh-high stockings painting his legs in an entirely new light. He was smirking in that way he did whenever he thought he’d gotten the upper hand over someone. (Levi usually saw it when sparring with him; Eren would grin his lopsided grin that meant he though the fight was over and Levi would have him pinned seconds later.)

“I thought I’d feel really awkward trying to seduce you in this, but then I looked at myself.”

The enthusiasm with which Levi went down on him, the words Eren muttered while grinding against him in his lap, how Eren had all but sobbed out his begging while Levi fingered him and spouted such filthy things that he surprised himself…in had culminated in a fuck that left Eren hoarse and Levi blissed out and wondering how Eren would look in red.

*****

3\. The worst time Levi had ever had trying to sleep was the first time Eren shared his bed. Maybe that’s not entirely true; Levi’s been deprived of sleep far too many times in his life, but this night remains particularly vibrant in his memory, particularly frustrating because he’d wanted to sleep, had been exhausted, but Eren’s arm had made its way around his waist.

It was only partially a matter of physical discomfort, of Eren’s sleepy mutters and the knowledge that their skin would be sticking together unpleasantly in the morning. More than that, it had brought with the light touch of those fingers the question of what the hell he was doing with the kid. What he wanted, what he thought Eren wanted. The unspoken pact to take things slow was one thing, but Levi couldn’t place limits and boundaries on the fact that Eren meant something to him, something uniquely warm, something he couldn’t rationalize. Couldn’t think past it, couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t push Eren away, either. Eren would never let him, he knew that, and that was part of his spark.

Levi wasn’t used to being lost. He was a thinker, held his emotions in check and dealt with them in ways he deemed appropriate. With Eren…There was no way to give order to what Eren did to him. No way to organize a strategy. No plans, no best course of action.

He was up for most of that night, long after he’d timed his breathing with Eren’s warm exhales on the back of his neck.

*****

4\. The last time he’d held someone so reverently…it was probably his mother. He couldn’t remember ever having pulled someone close for the simple reason of feeling their heartbeat, having their arms come around him in return. After missions gone bad, he could turn to sex, hard and demanding, or he’d sometimes rather fall asleep with the warmth of alcohol in his gut while someone’s fingers carded through his hair, but he didn’t ever just…hold someone.

There’d been those that had places in his heart, and those he’d clung tightly to in bed, but never had there been someone he’d wanted to lose all sense of time with, to be held by.

*****

5\. Time flies. He’d promised his heart never again, not after everything he’d put it through, and he’d believed he could keep that promise. Then he said they’d take things slow. But still, Levi finds himself in an embrace that’s warmer than it should be, than it has any right to be for somebody whose heart was as locked up as his. There’s a slow, thumping beat beside his ear that he thinks sets a faster rhythm than the time it took to break his promise.

*****

6\. Time changes. Levi can remember with clarity his early days in the Legion, when he’d seek out Erwin every week, goading him into wrecking him until he begged to be fucked out of his haunted thoughts.

It was angry at first; it was his way of letting out pain and guilt, dealing with it the only way he could: having it forced out of him.

He was lucky to have had Erwin. He understood what Levi had been asking for, could keep giving it when Levi’s anger turned to sadness, longing, a desire he had no name for. And he never asked for anything more, not even when Levi started coming to him more and more, asking for it harsher and harder. He forced that out of him, too. That Levi wanted Eren and felt guilty for it.

He didn’t push Levi; he let him go.

With Eren, Levi gives so much more than he ever thought he’d want to, and it feels good. It feels like the aftermath of being with Erwin, when the weightless contentment would settle in his core and spread through his limbs. He gives as much as he takes with Eren, and he’s starting to understand how much that’s worth.

*****

7\. Time heals. But Levi knows more than anyone that the sort of soothing given by time is too easily demolished. Old wounds heal too fragile and scar too deeply for time to be anything but a splint, precariously holding together a body that wants to let itself be torn apart. A memory can be enough to make fresh emotion seep through the scabs, render a bandage useless, dampened with hurt. Time was a cover that let you move on. It couldn’t truly heal anything.

Bright eyes healed. A wide smile, welcoming arms, gentle fingertips healed. A warm heart healed when it reached out to another. Somebody who stood beside you while you came to realize that all those who had left, everything that had come before, all the carnage in your soul, you’d weathered it for this. Eren was the splint, the link, the solution, he was whole, he was light, he was good. He was passion, determination, unfaltering loyalty, unwavering dedication, and he’d turned this all on Levi, and Levi felt that if he went looking for the strength he used to find in sadness, there wouldn’t be enough to tear open the bandage keeping his soul from falling apart.

*****

8\. Time stops. For some, it stops in moments of beauty. Lying contently with a lover, seeing all their affection plainly stated in their eyes. For others, it stops in moments of trauma. When you think your life is in danger. When news you’ve dreaded hearing is revealed. For Levi, it had been a long time since he’d felt the constriction in his chest, the lack of air, the loss of all sense of space, the trembling limbs that came with losing one’s time.

But when Eren was trapped, falling, panicking, gear malfunctioning and eyes wide, Levi had no memory of the time it took him to get from his heart dropping to being entangled with him.

So when he wakes up to Eren’s watery anger telling him off for being so unnecessarily stupid – _I would have healed, dammit!_ – there’s nothing for him to regret.

*****

9\. Timing is everything. This is what Hange said to him once they found out. Levi had known that once they caught wind of it, Hange would be all over their relationship like a brand new experiment. But long before the embarrassingly specific questions about Eren’s physical responses, their consistent meddling had come in the form of their unique (and well-meant, if Levi was forced to admit) courtship tips. Hange was constantly berating Levi for ‘not spending enough time with his boyfriend,’ because apparently, ‘timing was everything when it came to making relationships work. He couldn’t expect to just order Eren around all day long then end the day with a quick fuck and never talk about anything. Unless, of course, Eren was into being ordered around, in which case setting time aside for achieving effective communication was even more important.’

Levi, at this point, had deigned to take their unwashed face in both hands, to make sure he had their full attention, and tell them they could watch sometime if they’d just shut the hell up.

*****

10\. Remember the good times. Levi was determined to do this. He didn’t have that many good memories, one that weren’t tainted by blood. And it was too possible – too likely – that whatever good times he had with Eren would go the same route, but…

It came with Eren, the desire to let slack the grip he held on his reluctance. Levi held onto a darkness that made his life bearable, and getting close to Eren meant holding on was difficult, but what Eren’s light uncovered…it wasn’t bad. It was endurable. Levi had been so reluctant to have anyone close to him that it was new, this experience of reliving old pains with a constant, reassuring presence in the background. Feeling like somebody other than himself cared about his past.

So maybe it was worth creating good memories. Maybe he wouldn’t come to regret it. Because now, alive, Eren was vibrant, nearly pulsing with the desire to make Levi see the importance of remembering loved ones.

*****

11\. _At times like this, hope is everything._

Levi could have strangled Erwin, not for the first time. Echoing sentimental bullshit about _hope_. They’d been missing for a week. A _week_ , with no word.

Levi knew what it meant that the Commander was hesitant to send another squad out in search of the one missing. He knew what it meant when somebody didn’t come back. It’s not worth fighting; when someone is gone, they’re gone. That’s it. That’s the end.

So the part of Levi that’s iced with panic is frightening. It’s frightening to think that not long ago, he’d have been prepared for this, even expectant. It’s frightening to realize that once this feeling passes, this useless hope that has him thinking _No, not Eren, not him_ , he’ll be destroyed by loss again. He hadn’t wanted to hope. It had come to him unbidden. He realizes this when he’s repeating his routine that night, cleaning his room over and over.

_Hope is everything._

Hope is everything he has. In Eren’s absence, in the bitter space Levi didn’t want to acknowledge, hope had broken and entered. Hope had been known to cling like ivy, grow like weeds, thrive like kudzu without ever being noticed.

But wipe out the foundation, take away hope’s only basis, and it died, leaving rot behind. Levi knew rot.

But hope was all he had.

*****

12\. The time was right. There would never be another time. Fuck, he’d never expected to have the time he’d already had.

Levi sneered at the fluttering nervousness heating up his gut. There was nothing be nervous about, because it wasn’t going to change anything, not really. He’d only bothered with a ring because he knew Eren would go for the tradition. He could picture it pretty clearly, actually. Eren would cry, of course he would. And then he’d ask Levi if he was sure, if he was serious. And then he’d be unable to look at Levi without a smile threatening to permanently warp his face.

He could see it playing out, so there was no reason for how he felt like his blood was tightening with every heartbeat. Except he’d have to make sure Eren didn’t lose focus in the field because he was playing with the damn thing.

So he put the awkwardness he saw in Eren, the nervousness of his fidgeting, up to his own disjointed emotions, right up until the brat was on one knee in front of him, those damn eyes looking up at him with a questioning tremble, and Levi had to laugh. He couldn’t not laugh.

*****

13\. Time is an illusion. The idea that time changes people? Bullshit. People change people. Levi hadn’t been altered by the passage of time, but by the people he’d met and lost.

And he was tired of it. There were only so many times somebody could grieve before their heart gave up. Levi shut himself down before that could happen. If nobody could place a mark on his heart, his mind, then he lost nothing when they died.

A stagnant way of protecting himself, true, but he hardly cared. Hardly even noticed, really, until after Eren was gone, because change is like that sometimes. Slow and subtle.

*****

14\. It was time to go. Past time, really. Eren was probably the only one who wouldn’t be angry if he was late to their wedding.

*****

15\. Time waits for no man. It won’t ever slow just because you wish it. Rather, it takes those moments and rushes them forward, out of your grasp.

So Levi felt frozen when he could see Eren’s trajectory, could see the inevitability of his death. His actions felt like stutters, futile versus the threat of execution. He wasn’t useless, was far from helpless, and there was nothing he could do. A day that passed uneventfully may have been taken as a blessing, another day gone without titans, but they each weighed upon Levi, each throwing another log onto the fire Levi was trying to keep Eren from falling into. Levi’s arms were going to tire at some point. He couldn’t keep Eren from falling forever. Couldn’t keep either of them from falling. Eren’s risk was also his own; keeping Eren safe meant putting himself up to take the fall, and time had told Levi that such a risk never paid off. But there he was in a race against time to save some brat’s ass from being sacrificed in the name of societal peace. And he could do it, he knew he could keep the fire at bay, if only given more time.

*****

16\. It was time to forgive. He’d never had anyone to blame but himself. A lifetime of harsh lessons learned one after another had taught him to only be responsible for his own actions, the only ones he could ever truly be accountable for. He never blamed anyone else, and so never had to forgive anyone else.

But he’d so rarely forgiven himself for anything. He preferred to carry guilt like muscle, solid and built into his body from long, unpleasant hours. Definition that never left him. He carried his guilt like the box of patches under his bed, too many wings to want to count, like the pained understanding in Eren’s eyes when he showed him.

It wasn’t a rainy night; no clouds obscured the sky and the cold was almost bearable. The window was cracked, letting in just a sample of night noises. It wasn’t the kind of night that led to downtrodden introspection.

But he and Eren had led themselves into talking about loyalty, how everyone had a different definition of it. This was something Levi had learned long ago, even before he’d had to factor in those who only _claimed_ their loyalty. But Eren was young, and maybe the kid had known all along, on some level, that everybody approaches the world in their own way, but sometimes he didn’t realize he had the knowledge until it was laid bare in front of him.

Levi didn’t add much to their conversation; Eren was talking more than just to fill a silence. Levi had spent enough time around him to know that the kid just _felt_ too damn much and sometimes couldn’t even put a name on things, so he just talked himself out until something made sense in his head. And somewhere in Eren’s soliloquy, Levi’s heart had spasmed and clenched as he thought about his own loyalty, to those living and dead.

He pulled the box from underneath the bed and set it between them. Eren didn’t stop talking until he removed the top.

Some were bloodstained.

Eren’s hand moved but stayed where it was, like he’d wanted to touch but didn’t dare.

“These are…”

“How I remain loyal to them. Their memories.”

Why was it so hard to meet Eren’s eyes? Why could he hardly breathe?

“Levi…”

Levi’s gaze remained on the wings, ones he’d had to cut so many times and add to the haunting collection. He could no longer tell which scrap of fabric belonged to which name seared into his memory.

“Loyalty…isn’t guilt. It isn’t…It shouldn’t be something that hurts you like this.”

That he should say Levi was the one hurting when he could hear the pain in Eren’s voice.

Eren pushed the box away and moved closer to him.

And then his arm was around Levi’s shoulders, hesitant, and it was shocking to realize that he was crying. He didn’t know the last time he’d cried, had written it off as a damn stupid thing to keep track of long ago, because he hated seeing comrades sob, grief exploding from them so defiantly, so big and so much and so obvious that it couldn’t be kept in by any human defenses. If he did that, if he let grief overcome him so, he’d be changed in the eyes of so many. He would become someone different to so many. Even to himself.

So it was unnerving to taste the salt on his upper lip, to sniff and hiccup as he breathed, to be pulled into Eren’s chest, to hear Eren whispering his name over and over and have no answer.

*****

17\. Day time, in a stable. Levi hadn’t ever imagined having sex in place that smelled quite so strongly, but there he was rutting against Eren as eagerly as if they were in his rooms, doors safely locked.

Eren was braced against the wall, back arched and pants around his knees, ass presented. Levi’s cock was pressed between his thighs, rubbing his balls every time he thrust his hips. The saliva left behind from Eren’s mouth had been replaced by pre-come, coating Eren’s skin and smoothing the way. Levi was pitched forward, forehead on Eren’s back, and Eren was moaning as if they really were somewhere more privately enclosed.

“Quiet,” Levi said, putting as much of an order behind it as he could.

Eren gasped and clenched his legs together, making Levi squeeze his hips harder, and it sounded like Eren hadn’t even tried to keep his volume under control.

“Dammit, shut up, brat.”

He moved one hand to cover Eren’s mouth but almost immediately, Eren moaned even louder and sucked two Levi’s fingers into his mouth. Levi tried to pull his hand away, the rhythm of his hips faltering with his initial displeasure – he certainly did _not_ want his fingers in anyone’s mouth – but Eren followed, sucking harder and actually whimpering.

Levi’s hips jerked. He had half a mind to push Eren back down on his knees and let him have at it again, the way his tongue was moving over his fingers.

But like this, he could pound away and hear the slapping of flesh coming together while he kept Eren in place with one hand and kept him in his place with the other.

He shoved away his discomfort and pushed his fingers further back in Eren’s mouth, and the groan he got for it was wrecked and reverberated throughout his torso.

“Shit, you like that, don’t you…” It was hardly above a whisper, but still Eren whined and clenched his thighs again.

Levi put his forehead back between Eren’s shoulders, his fingers clenching hard on his hip. Eren was moving counterpoint to him, fist working his cock.

And then they heard laughter.

Levi froze, and felt a panic that wasn’t so unlike that very first moment your feet left the ground before you were flying. Eren fell silent as the sounds of two young recruits joking with each other grew closer.

Levi jolted back to himself and tried to pull away from away, but the damn brat clamped his thighs together and sucked hard on his fingers, and Levi had to bite down on a sound of his own. 

He was going to murder this kid.

Eren bobbed his head just slightly, just enough to remind Levi of how good he could be with his mouth, and Levi curled his fingers, pressing down on his tongue until Eren let out a sigh of utter pleasure and slid his thighs along the cock between them.

Levi was caught between listening to the juvenile sounds outside and the desire to throw Eren down and take him hard. He couldn’t pinpoint the location of the sounds, what with Eren doing his best to have his undivided attention. He wasn’t sure which would be worse, the embarrassment or the consequences. Granted, if they really were just trainees, he could have them under orders to keep quiet. Easy, with his reputation. And Eren’s.

But the laughter was fading, no telltale echoing footsteps announcing their presence in the stables themselves.

Levi reached up to grab a fistful of Eren’s hair, forcing him back with Levi’s fingers still hooked in his mouth.

“You picked one hell of a kinky way to die, brat.”

There was nothing but excitement in Eren’s eyes.

*****

18\. _Night time. Cold. Missing half the blanket. Eren’s making noises. Eren’s…humping him?_

Holy fuck, the kid was grinding on his ass in his sleep and fuck, that cock was a lot bigger than it had any right to be.

Maybe not his greatest idea, letting the kid stay the night in his bed.

Okay, so, elbow him awake? Let him cream his underwear? Ugh, no, disgusting, plus if he kept making those little noises in his ear, Levi was going to have a hard-on of his own to deal with. Not to mention that the arm around his waist was pulling him as flush as possible with those insistent hips.

Hips that…weren’t so insistent suddenly?

“You’re awake, aren’t you…”

He hadn’t felt Eren wake up.

Levi sniffed.

“I am… _so_ sorry.” Eren lifted his arm and pulled it away, rolling over.

“You gonna go take care of that?” Levi asked with a near growl, shutting his eyes again.

“No, it’ll go away,” Eren muttered, sounding as petulantly embarrassed as when Levi had caught him using his broom as a dancing partner while sweeping.

Levi allowed himself a tiny smile when he felt Eren get up not minutes later and heard the bathroom door quietly close.

*****

19\. Next time.

Next time he wouldn’t let it end like this.

Next time, they were going to be happy.

Levi wasn’t in pain anymore; the deep, intimidating sting in his gut had been taken over by a sense of emptiness in his chest that he struggled to breathe past. His shirt was plastered to his side, and if he didn’t look, he could imagine it was just sweat, that the entire side of his body wasn’t stained.

Eren was crying above him, the tears falling onto his face. It felt good. But he was angry, he was so angry at Eren for crying. He had to tell him that.

He reached up to Eren’s face, or he tried, because _fuck_ , it was hard to move. Eren grasped desperately at the hand Levi had raised and squeezed like it could save him. Shit, it wasn’t fair.

He said Eren’s name and wanted to scream when it came it sounding like he’d breathed out shards of hot glass, pinpricks of pain all over. How damn hard was it to just fucking _speak_ …He shut his eyes but Eren choked and flinched, so he opened them again out of nothing but refusal to let the brat freak out just yet.

He heaved a breath in, and the stutter in his chest and the slick warmth that gushed freshly onto the grass beneath him should have been sickening, but Eren was looking only at his eyes.

Levi blinked, had to fight his eyes open again, and spoke.

“Next time.”

*****

20\. Every time. Every damn time he tried to touch himself, the damn kid would be there in his mind, with those big eyes looking up at him, bigger mouth wrapped around his cock. Or sitting astride him, the veins in his neck straining as he threw his head back, thighs clenching as he worked himself up and down. Or bent over, looking over his shoulder as Levi pounded him from behind. Or on his back, a look of ultimate pleasure on his face as he fingered himself before Levi straddled his face and fucked his eager mouth.

It was a problem.

Levi refused to get off to the debauched images he continued to conjure of the brat, but it was like the more he refused, the filthier his fantasies became. He didn’t mind having to wash his sheets so often, but spending the day half-hard was a damn pain; training while ignoring it and making sure not to end up behind Eren at any point was, to put it mildly, difficult, especially when all he really wanted to do was claim a piss break and go fucking jerk it behind a tree.

But he couldn’t, because every time he started getting to that point, where he thought a little stress relief was exactly what he needed, Jaeger’s stupid face would be there. And yeah, it was fucking fantastic to imagine finishing all over that pretty face, but dammit, he wasn’t going to, because one thing would lead to another, and there was no way he was going to let that damned brat have _anything_ to do with his sex life.

*****

21\. “About time,” is all Hange had to say. “Eren’s been pining after you for weeks.”

*****

22\. “Extra time, I just need more time.”

“No time, Arlert.”

Levi’s figured out over the years that you talk faster during times of duress. Even when you’ve learned to suppress your own fear, your own panic, you talk fast because those looking up to you are the ones panicking. Their hearts are pounding and they’re ready to move the moment you give the order. You talk fast to keep up with them. A slow voice makes them nervous.

It’s that voice of experience that keeps Levi in charge even when pushing Armin for a plan because he doesn’t see a way out of this one. Tactics has never been his strong point; he carried out the plan, he didn’t come up with it, so if there existed a better plan than a head-on attack, he’d take it, and future shitty-glasses would be the one to come up with it.

Eren’s watching his friend with a half-smile that was there from nothing but adrenaline, but in his eyes, there’s fear. Levi knows what fear looks like, has seen it manifest too many times on the faces of the soldiers he’s in charge of, the people he sends out to die under his orders, to kill themselves however he chooses.

He’s about to do this to Eren.

He’s about to send this squad, this perfect, incredible squad of humanity’s best soldiers, to be torn apart.

But he knew this would happen, he’d always known, that was why he tried so hard to fight his own humanity, the human addiction to attachment. He knew too much about every soldier under his command, all those who’d died because of his orders.

And suddenly he’s just so mad at himself, because he knew, he fucking _knew_ better than to get close to Eren. Of all the damn people he could have gone and…Humanity’s Last Hope…

He’s mad at him, too. For that stubborn will that had gotten Levi’s attention in the first place. For being so earnest, loyal, so trusting in his own beliefs that he dedicated his life to doing the right thing. And for choosing him. Levi was angry that Eren had picked him to place the intensity of his affections on.

Eren’s love had been unexpectedly, overwhelmingly strong, and Levi knew he’d made a mistake a long time ago. A terrible, beautiful mistake he didn’t have the self-hatred to regret.

But he could hate it. He could hate having to pay for it. Could hate losing it.

Eren’s crouched next Armin, and the fear Levi had seen is still there, still evident, and it’s as much for Armin as for himself. Of course; Eren can’t bring himself to value his own life above another’s. That lack of selfishness was going to cost Levi.

Eren was going to die, and Levi would deal with it. He always did.

“Okay.”

It’s been mere seconds since Armin was caught off guard by Levi turning to him. A plan that takes seconds to formulate is either so obvious it’s a trainee evaluation or it’s a last-ditch effort to try and stay alive.

Eren finally meets his eyes. They both know.

The fear in Eren’s eyes turns to resolve, and he nods, just a single, quick up and down jerk of his head.

Levi’s not ready.

*****

23\. In time, it would hurt less. He knows that from experience.

He’ll probably never stop being angry.

At himself, first and foremost, for letting himself think for a single moment that Eren was going to stick around and be okay, and at Eren for dying, and at the Scouting Legion for being useless, and at the titans, at the whole damn system.

Angry is easy.

It’s faded into a steady churn, no longer the acidic, roiling burn that turned his days to blinding numbness and his nights to all-consuming coldness. Days of snarling orders and flinching from condolences and nights of wishing he could slice open his loneliness, tear it away as easily as Eren had been torn from him.

He didn’t feel the anger like that anymore, like he was inches from an open fire. He didn’t send curses at Erwin when he tried to offer meager words. He accepted his sickeningly genuine eyes, and Hange’s worried, frazzled hugs, and never shoved them away.

He was angry in the way ashes are still warm in the morning. Nobody saw, nobody cared, nobody knew to be careful, that there was still danger, still a fire left underneath if you moved things just right; red-orange embers you could blow into blossoming again.

Levi seethed like he was waiting for the wind.

*****

24\. Out of time came memories.

Memories of those lost, yes, but also of those loved.

Levi had tried to keep as few of those memories as he could, but time had been forgiving to some; some people were still around.

He remembers how much he hated Erwin when they first met, and how smug he felt the first time he read pride and awe on that face. His early memories of Hange are more blurry, but not the time he’d just had to stop and stare when they first turned one of his shit jokes around on him. And Eren…Condescending to him down in that dungeon cell couldn’t have been the first time they’d met; he could remember having seen the kid around before. But that dingy cell is what’s etched in his mind as important because it’s where he first saw that spark of hungry dedication, the kind driven by a purpose.

It had reminded him of himself. He was seeing echoes of himself in this idealistic brat because he recognized something in those eyes. Levi could recognize someone who’d been haunted, chased, and had the drive to turn around and attack rather than cower.

He’d been fairly certain it was Eren’s sense of purpose that attracted him to the brat. He just hadn’t counted on Eren becoming so important to him that he’d do anything to keep his dream alive. To keep making memories with him.

Levi had been taking so much for granted because the inevitability of death simply loomed too close. Shutting himself off, acting like he didn’t care…it was just easier, when everyone you knew could be dead by the next morning. He’d treated the people important to him as if he couldn’t care less because it was how he wished it could be.

But he did care; Eren had showed him how much he cared. About everyone. Levi had discovered in himself a remarkable capacity for emotion, and he no longer had the energy to cut himself off from the world. Not when Eren was always there with a smile, always either laughing or fighting with his comrades, always pouring so much passion into it every time he kissed Levi, always _feeling_. Eren had dug stubbornly into a splintering corner of his heart, pried it open, and there was no turning back.

Levi would treasure the people around him, and every single memory he made with them. He would no longer look back and regret all the times he’d gotten close to someone and lost them. He was beginning to realize the worth in having memories of time spent with the ones you loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at [fictionalfeather](http://fictionalfeather.tumblr.com).


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